Brazil’s Nicho54 Institute is launching Cinemateca Negra (Black Brazilian Cinematheque in literal translation), an authentic publication that consolidates knowledge about Black movies in Brazil. Launching globally from the Marché du Movie in Cannes, the publication maps over a thousand movies made by Black filmmakers between 1949 and 2022, that includes a wealth of criticism, interviews, and knowledge aimed toward combating the historic erasure of Black creatives within the nation, in addition to incentivizing public insurance policies to assist Black filmmakers.
“Despite still facing deep historical inequalities when it comes to investment and visibility, the research [we conducted] demonstrates the strength of Black creativity over seven decades,” stated Fernanda Lomba, filmmaker and founding father of Nicho 54, a collective group devoted to strategically strengthening the presence of Black folks within the Brazilian audiovisual trade by expertise improvement, analysis and institutional assist. “Our hope is to establish partnerships that can help us promote the preservation of this memory and these films, as well as stimulate healthier business for the next generations of Black filmmakers,” Lomba added.
Lomba will attend the Marché alongside curator Bethania Maia and producer Rubian Melo. Nicho54 can be at Cannes to amplify its internationalization efforts and can launch the fifth version of Sala 54, a digital platform restricted to the worldwide trade and completely devoted to selling arthouse movies directed by Black Brazilian filmmakers. The announcement of the newest version of Sala 54 will mark a first-time partnership between Nicho 54 and the Pavillion Afronova at Cannes, devoted to selling creatives from the African continent and diaspora.
“Since the beginning of Nicho54, we anxiously wanted to establish cooperation with African initiatives,” stated Lomba. “Working alongside the Pavillion Afronova in Cannes this year is a strategic move that has been developed for years and places a bet on cooperation beyond the obvious shared sense of identity. We now have a commercial and artistic drive to strengthen cultural and economic bonds between Black Brazil, Africa and the diasporic Europe.”
Final month, Lomba strengthened Nicho54’s need to proceed to increase on worldwide collaborations with African filmmakers as she met with “My Father’s Shadow” director Akinola Davies Jr on the Projeto Paradiso Nationwide Expertise Community gathering in Recife. “‘My Father’s Shadow’ brings such a poetic and honest experience about masculinity, and particularly Black masculinity, to Brazil. Akinola bravely and generously weaves a fabulous patchwork of memory, private life, and Nigeria’s history. We have a lot to learn from this filmmaker’s gentle radicality [in Brazil],” she added on the time.
Nicho54 describes its Sala54 initiative as a “convergence between the rising international demand for narratives from the Brazilian diaspora with a select curation.” Initially conceived as a streaming platform for movies chosen for the Nicho Movie Competition, the platform now seems to be in the direction of the worldwide stage.
Maia, a curator at Nicho54, stated that launching Sala54 on the Cannes Movie Competition “celebrates Nicho’s international bridge-building.” “The platform aims to competitively position Black Brazilian cinema in the international audiovisual industry through an understanding of the importance of endorsing the global circulation of Black stories. The curatorial politics of Sala54 was constructed in a collaborative way, understanding Black thinking as multiple and in motion. When establishing curation as the main criteria for selection, the platform aims to creatively emancipate Black creatives in building their narratives and create an environment that reflects the diversity of Black points of view in the Brazilian audiovisual industry,” she concluded.
